14 - 20 December 2000
Issue No.512
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Al-Ahram Weekly On-line 14 - 20 December 2000 Issue No.512 |
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No finger pointing in fact finding
PRESIDENT Hosni Mubarak on Tuesday met a fact-finding commission investigating the reasons behind 10 weeks of violence in the occupied territories. The commission, established at the Sharm Al-Sheikh summit in October, is on its inaugural visit to the region and has held talks with Israeli, Palestinian, Egyptian and Jordanian officials."The purpose of the first visit was precisely to meet the leaders," commission chairman George Mitchell, former US Senator and Northern Ireland peace mediator, said.
Commission members are European Union Foreign Policy Chief Javier Solana, Turkey's former President Suleiman Demirel, Norwegian Foreign Minister Thorbjorn Jagland and US Senator Warren Rudman.
The clashes, which began on 28 September, have caused the deaths of more than 300 and injury of some 12,000 people, mostly Palestinians.
"It's not our intention to inflame the situation," Mitchell said. "We are not going to be pointing fingers. We are not going to be assigning blame or individual responsibility."
Mitchell declined to inform reporters after the meeting with Mubarak whether the commission would observe events on the ground, dodging questions on whether his five-member team would conduct field visits. "We are going to do whatever is necessary in our judgement to prepare a full, fair, impartial and independent report. We certainly will go beyond documents," Mitchell said.
After meeting the mission separately on Monday, both Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak and Palestinian President Yasser Arafat pledged to do their best to lower tension. Mitchell said that Palestinians and Israelis would be able to make comments on the commission's report before it was made public.
Mitchell quashed earlier reports that the commission would limit its work to reports submitted by both sides, saying that they would make numerous trips to the region and collect as much information as possible.
"We will be back in the region several times, for several days," he said. "We'll receive information from the widest possible range of sources and we will make the appropriate judgement at the appropriate time on what is necessary."
The commission is scheduled to report its findings to the president of the United States and UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan by the end of March.
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